From Father Stephen who summs up the life of being Orthodox in a nutshell...
The Orthodox “experience” if I can use such a phrase, is the confirmation in the heart of the truth we have received as we grow in grace and in purity of heart. But the truth of the faith must be confirmed in such a living manner or it simply becomes an historical item and the Church would be a collection of antiquarians and not the living temple of God. For my knowledge of God is also my life in God. Life, light, truth, knowledge - all of these have something of a synomymous character.

O Lord, Save Thy people and bless thine inheritance...

Rememeber me O Lord, in Thy Kingdom...

Can't see the wood for the trees!
Looking along the path which has led me to this day, I was prompted by a dear friend, Phyllis, and the gift of the writing book she gave at Christmas, to articulate some observations of The Path so far. So here is a small offering.

I heard a voice say “Today, if you hear Him, do not harden your hearts…”
Lord, Have Mercy…


Jesus says “I will build my church”

As we read the lives of the Orthodox Saints, The Holy Spirit and our prayer to Christ prepares us and we become sharers of something of their grace and experience of Christ and, as with all Christ’s does through His people, this experience helps us to find our path in, and to, Christ too.

It’s a homecoming!
To God, and to our “self”.

As I was once taught – “From glory to GLORY”!

The Church gives us Bishops, Priests and Deacons: Holy Monks and Nuns, Friends and Mothers-in-Christ, men and women who stand on The Path, and send up flares to help light our way back to God and to our true “self.”
They ask God what He wants to give them… then do just that and only that.

In the Liturgy The Church prays for the church,
and prayer is continually offered …
Priest: For our Archbishop (Name), our Bishop (Name), the honourable presbyters, the deaconate in Christ, all the clergy and the people, let us pray to the Lord.
People: Lord, have mercy.


Speaking with the Priest can help us only when we help ourselves to the help offered.
Applying the ointment, or taking/swallowing/ingesting the word of treatment offered by our Spiritual Father, is how we accept the grace of healing for our broken-ness…
given by The Father, through Christ, in The Holy Spirit, offered within His Church fulfilled in the Holy Mysteries.
“I will take the cup of Salvation, and call upon The Name of The Lord!”

If I have put on Christ, His way should not be alien to me.
Therefore should the same garment fit all?

Holy God; Holy Mighty; Holy Immortal… Have Mercy on us.